Salt & Smoke Catering

the bar, the set-up and teardown of the reception venue, the linens, and waitstaff/bartender. Overall our experience was great, though there were a few things that I didn’t anticipate happening and would have had some communication about beforehand, if I could do it again. The good: - Salt n’ Smoke was great at communicating in the lead up to the wedding. Especially as we got closer to our date, Sara Swain was very available to take my questions and give me valuable advice from her experiences catering my venue (Piper Palm House). She was also very flexible and responsive to a last-minute floorplan change and dealing with checks that got lost in the mail 😬. On the day of, everything was set up according to the directions I gave. - The tasting was also very helpful, and we appreciated the input and made a few menu changes afterwards. - Day of, the caterers arrived on time and they were like a very efficient well-oiled machine that worked in the background and just got things done (serving apps and desserts, taking down the tent walls, etc)! - Finally, the food was incredible, the same quality as you’d get in the restaurant. And they packaged up all the leftovers from the buffet for us to take home. Downsides/things I’d change: There were only two main issues that we had with the offerings and service - First, having craft beer was important to me and I was a bit disappointed that the only way to have beer other than bud light, michelob ultra, etc. was to spring for the premium bar package. It would be nice if there was a mid-level package that perhaps did not include the better liquors but at least allowed for one or two craft beers. - Following from the first comment, since we did end up getting the premium bar package, I was also disappointed with how limited the bar offerings were. For a premium package, the bartender did not have the supplies to make an old fashioned, a margarita, a moscow mule, etc. It seemed like there were only juice and soda mixers. This limitation was not obvious in the package listing, and is something I wish I had asked about. - The second main issue is about bussing the tables. I understand that the staff was trying to be helpful, and also to keep the wedding moving according to our timeline, but in trying to keep the tables cleared, they threw away some crucial components of our wedding favors. Our favors came in mesh bags with instruction pamphlets so that guests could take them home, and many guests informed me that the bags and instructions had been thrown away. We spent a lot of time (and money!) on designing the favor experience, and hoped they would be re-used, so this was especially upsetting to us. If I would have anticipated that they would be seen as trash, I would have said something. - The other issue was that my husband confirmed, after he was asked, that he was going to come back to eat his plate of wedding food and the first slice of cake. But in each case, when he came back to have his food/cake he found that it was thrown away. After all our work of choosing the food and cake, he was upset that he did not have a chance to fully enjoy it on the day of.